


With Your Best Blood and Your Anger

by will_o_whisper



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Developing Relationship, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-18 20:34:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5942224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/will_o_whisper/pseuds/will_o_whisper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What should be simple clean up job goes south. In the aftermath Preston and MacCready learn a little more about themselves and each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The first time Preston tells MacCready to shut up he does, from the shock of who said it more than what’s said. In a dusty old military broadcast station, freshly cleared of raiders, MacCready bangs around empty ammo boxes for shells he’s already pocketed while Preston tik-taks away at an only slightly bloody terminal.

“Come ooon. They’re dead, we got the good stuff. Let’s get going already!” MacCready throws another ammo box to the ground, watches it bang and clatter across the floor until it rattles to a stop against a raider corpse – his handiwork: a clean shot right through the forehead. Good work, he thinks, and the flush of pride distracts him from his annoyance until he realizes Preston still hasn’t answered him.

“Hey, did you hear me? I said let’s _go_. Maybe if you move your as—get your butt out that chair we can get back to Sanctuary sometime this year. Maybe even sleep in a real bed tonight, wouldn’t that be – ”

Another sharp metallic bang, Preston’s fist against the desk he’d realize, startles him into silence. The words, half-shouted and fully angry, “Man, would you shut it?” startles him even more.

MacCready shuts it.

“I’m almost done,” Preston says, a little quieter. “I just want to see if there’s anything here about what we’re dealing with, if there’s more coming back.”

There’s always more, MacCready wants to snap, but he keeps his mouth shut a little longer.

For the next few minutes Preston works in silence while MacCready riffles through the pockets of the dead, slipping the odd overlooked cap into a pouch on his belt. He finds fifteen, enough for a drink, by the time the tik-takking stops.

Preston stands up with a grunt, hefts his laser musket up on his shoulder with one hand, and grabs his satchel of salvage with the other. He doesn’t tell MacCready whether he found what he was looking for; MacCready doesn’t tell him about the fifteen caps.

It’s midday by the time they finally head out. The sun is bright and warm, and standing at the top of the hill MacCready has a good view of the Commonwealth – deceptively empty, quiet except for a whisper of wind. If not for the scent of blood, piss, and shit drifting down from the station massacre behind him it would be downright peaceful and pretty. He wishes Duncan was there to see it; he promises himself one day Duncan will.

A few yards ahead of him Preston calls back for MacCready to hurry it up. They don’t want to be caught out in the open come nightfall, and while there was never any chance of making it back to Sanctuary that day there was an abandoned house, mostly still standing, a few hours hike down the highway.

“We should get there by dusk,” Preston says as MacCready falls into step beside him. “There were a few cans of beans, remember? I stashed them under the floorboards; they should still be there when we get back. Those raiders had some dried brahmin meat too. At the least we shouldn’t need to worry about hunting down dinner.”

“Yeah, sounds like you got it all planned out.” The words tumble out, sounding snottier than MacCready intends, but he doesn’t apologize. His stomach aches, his feet hurt, and as far as he’s concerned it’s Preston’s fault he’s out here at all. Preston may not have wanted or asked for his help, but “The General” did.

“General” is Preston’s name for her. As far as MacCready is concerned she’s just Samantha. Sam when he’s feeling familiar; boss when he’s being a brat. She’s an old lady with no sense of humor who couldn’t find her own ass with both hands. She can’t save the Commonwealth, no one can, but she saved something far more precious to MacCready and for that he would follow her to the ends of the earth if she asked.

Or, in this case, follow a washed up Minuteman with a hero complex to a raider camp and back.

Preston slows to stop and stares at him with open disdain.

MacCready squares his shoulders. “What, Garvey, gonna tell me to shut up again?”

“Forget it,” Preston says and sets off again.

MacCready sets off after him. He doesn’t forget it. He lets the annoyance stew with his growing hunger and his lingering pains.

The highway is wide and empty save the odd desecrated carcass of an old vehicle. They’re exposed on the road, but no more so than they would out in the waist-high grass of the yellow-brown fields. Samantha once told MacCready that Commonwealth used to be filled with trees. Not scraggly bare-branched husks, but real trees, tall with thick trunks and deep green leaves that turned red and yellow and orange before falling off and growing back bright and vibrant again. The sort of trees they drew in comic books. Those trees would be nice now, MacCready thinks. They sound like better cover than a rusted old car waiting for a stray bullet to send it up in irradiated flames.

Thoughts of trees and exploding cars and children’s comics knock about in MacCready’s head for the next hour as he and Preston trudge silently down the road. It’s a long boring hike when nobody is inclined to talk. MacCready keeps his eyes on the open fields, and Preston does the same. Weeks later MacCready will admit to himself he might have been looking for danger, but he wasn’t watching.

They hear that unmistakable ‘pap pap pap’ of gunfire before they see the first raider.

“Get down!”

Like MacCready needs to be told. Two more shots ricochet off the asphalt at his feet as he dives behind the burnt out husk of a green sedan. He fumbles his rifle off his shoulder while he scans the field. Three raiders coming down the hill – two women armed with pistols, one man with a bat - and, he ducks back behind the car as another bullet twangs against the hood, at least one sniper he can’t see.

Preston is a little further up the road, taking cover behind a charred rusted van. His musket fires with a deafening bwang that sets a raider screaming

More annoyed than worried, MacCready chambers a round and snaps the bolt shut. When he comes back up he spies one less raider and a pile of ash still glowing with a dull red. He aims for the remaining raider armed with a pistol and fires two shots; the first blasts the ground behind her but the second hits her square in the neck.

The sniper opens fire again, a thunk-thunk-thunk as rounds pepper the side of the sedan. A crash as a window shatters, a pop, and then the unmistakable smell of burning oil. He needs to move, he thinks, scrabbling to his feet.

He needs to move is his last thought before a cedar bat comes down hard between his shoulder blades.

\--

When MacCready comes to he finds himself finishing a question he can’t remember starting.

“—happened?”

He feels like he’s caught in a rapidly receding fog. His head hurts; his leg hurts more. Something tickles his cheek with every breath and everything is much too bright. He’s lying on something mostly soft, but lumpy. Semi-firm lumps dig into his lower back, noticeable and uncomfortable. Someone leans into his line of sight, hazy around the edges then growing clear: a broad nose, sharp eyes, a familiar worried frown. No hat. That was strange.

“Preston?” MacCready jolts up, or tries to. Pain sears up his back and he screams.

“Careful!” Preston jerks forward, helps ease MacCready back down on his makeshift bed of coats and blankets. “It’s still me,” he says after MacCready stops whimpering. “Are you back? Do you remember what happened?”

He doesn’t, and tells Preston as much. This time he doesn’t try to sit up.

“I’m not surprised; it was pretty bad. You know who I am, though. That’s a good sign, I think? You know who you are, right?”

Preston moves back out of MacCready’s line of sight, but he hears a sigh and the rustle of clothing as he reseats himself.

“Of course I do. I – ah! God!” Trying to turn his head was a bad idea. A terrible idea. MacCready’s vision goes black and the pounding behind his eyes doubles in intensity. A wave of nausea washes over him and for several seconds he’s positive he’s going to vomit. Something cool and wet presses against his brow. When MacCready opens his eyes – he hadn’t realized he closed them – Preston’s leaning over him again.

“I used the last stimpack trying to get you stable enough to move. There’s med-x, but only two. Do you…?”

“Yes!” The plea comes out pathetic and reedy, but MacCready can’t bring himself to care. His stomach is still roiling while his vision fades out again. Through it all, strangely, he’s stuck on the hat. He’s never seen Preston without it.

A needle jabs into his arm, all but unnoticed. The relief is all but instantaneous. MacCready focuses on his breathing and the water dribbling from the damp cloth on his forehead down the shell of his ear.

“That should keep you at least a few hours. You should use them to sleep,” he hears Preston say. He sounds distant, like he’s speaking from the other end of a long hallway.

“What happened?” MacCready murmurs. As the pain recedes exhaustion rapidly takes its place. He closes his eyes, just for moment. Whatever Preston says next, he doesn’t hear it.

It’s dark when MacCready wake up again. He doesn’t know how long he slept, but the pounding in his head is still bearable; he supposes it can’t have been long, if the med-x is still working. For several moments he simply lies there, listening to the thump-thump of his heart and the crackle of a fire he can’t see. Overhead is a faded brown tarp, the makeshift tent Preston had insisted on bringing with them. Long blades of grass brush against his cheek, a frustrating ticklish itch. They aren’t on the road anymore, MacCready realizes.

He wonders if it’s worth trying to scratch his cheek. Probably not, but he tries anyway.

A thunk and a loud pop: the sound of a log thrown on an unseen fire. Someone grunts as they shuffle to their feet.

“You’re awake! How are you feeling?” Preston, of course. There’s a sigh of relief in his voice MacCready doesn’t know what to make of.

Instead of dwelling on the thought MacCready yanks the offending tuft of grass out of the ground with a grunt and a wince. “Like cra—God, I mean awful. Like a freaking house fell on me. What happened?”

“You’re not far off. Do you remember being attacked by raiders?”

MacCready does remember, or thinks he does. He remembers a broadcast station. He remembers looting the corpses. Preston nods along as he struggles to backtrack through hazy memories.

“I’m not surprised,” he says when MacCready finishes. “We were ambushed...part of the gang we took out at the station; they flanked us, but things might have been alright if that car hadn’t gone up. You took a pretty bad blow to the head from the debris – even blacked out for a bit – and that leg is pretty mangled.”

There’s something in Preston’s voice MacCready can’t identify; apologetic, he wants to say, but that’s not the word. He doesn’t understand it anymore than he understands why he’s still alive. Nothing about the situation makes sense to him. With the med-x fogging his mind and the constant thrumming pain the drug can’t quite kill he can’t focus enough to puzzle it out.

Preston shuffles a bit closer. “Anyway, you should eat and get some more rest. I’ve radioed Sanctuary. There’s an allied settlement nearby. They’re sending help, about a day out” That something creeps back into his voice with the next words. “We just have to hold out until then.”

MacCready gives a weak nod. They’ve made camp under a gnarled old husk of a tree. Preston slides an arm under MacCready’s armpits and helps pull him into a mostly sitting position, leaning back against the trunk for support.

The effort triggers a fresh wave of pain and nausea that sends MacCready reeling. While he sits taking deep rasping breaths Preston presses a damp cloth to the back of his neck, keeping an arm around his shoulders to keep him steady. Preston is warm and sturdy, and under other circumstances MacCready might find that pleasant. Wheezing through the overwhelming urge to vomit, he just finds it frustrating.

“I’m fine. Let go.”

Preston lets go. He leaves the damp cloth, which MacCready won’t admit he appreciates.

Sitting up he can see his “mangled leg,” as Preston called it, inexpertly splinted with belts and branches, the pant leg cut away to reveal feverish red skin and a calf bandaged with brownish-red stained cloth. Nausea flares at the sight. He lets his head drop back against the tree and focuses on the water droplets pooling in his shirt collar.

“Don’t see why you’re wasting your time, Garvey,” he mutters, watching Preston root around his travel pack for something to eat.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean why are you doing all this?” MacCready snaps, though most of the anger is lost when his stomach gurgles. “It’s not like you care.”

“Man, what the hell are you going on about? Of course I do!” Fusion cells scatter across the dirt. Preston curses softly, offering MacCready the greasy newspaper wrapped something he’d pulled out the pack.

For one hysterical moment MacCready wants to smack the paper out of Preston’s hand. Instead he lets the feeling – anger, confusion, hunger, pain – carry his next words as he takes the proffered item. “Yeah, I guess another dead body on your watch would look pretty bad. Wouldn’t want to disappoint the General, am I right?”

“It’s not like that!” A thud and the rattle of unseen items as the pack hits the ground. “Look, maybe you’d let somebody bleed out in the middle of nowhere for pissing you off, but some of us are better than that. _I’m_ better than that.”

Any snappy comebacks die in MacCready’s throat when he sees Preston’s face. He wishes he would put the hat back on, do something to look more like the Preston he knows. The person facing him now, lips pursed in defiance, brow furrowed in anger, brown eyes dull with something he still can’t name…he doesn’t know what to do with him.

“You really think I’d have just left you there?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Well you’re wrong,” MacCready spits, but the words lack the bite that comes with honesty.

Preston looks away, picks up his fallen pack, and starts collecting his scattered fusion cells with the intensity of man who’s done arguing. “You should eat and try to get some more rest, before the pain gets too bad again,” he says.

‘So why?’ The question burns like bad liquor at the back of MacCready’s throat. Preston has his back him now, sitting cross-legged, laser musket across his knees. He could shout, rage, try and pull him back in, but what would he say? And the pounding in his head is getting worse by the second.

MacCready looks down at the object in his hand, peels back the greasy newspaper, and takes a small piece of the reddish brown jerky inside. Brahmin, he remembers, from the raider camp. He nibbles on the edge, stomach churning in response to the sudden taste of too-salty meat. He finishes half a piece before the nausea becomes too much to bear.

MacCready spends the night sleeping upright, too pained and nauseous to try lying back down on his own, too proud to ask Preston for help. Warm water from the forgotten cloth drips down his back.

He wakes up crying. At first, so focused on the thundering in his ears, he doesn’t realize the high pitched wailing comes from him. Cold sweat beads on his forehead; dribbles down his cheeks to mix with hot tears. He doesn’t feel the hand on his shoulder or the steel syringe jab into his arm.

Pain recedes by increments. First MacCready sinks back into his body; remembers where he is; remembers his name. Next he finds his breath and his voice; focuses until his loud gulping sobs are stifled whimpers. Slowly he starts to identify the sources of pain: his head, his shoulders, his side, his left leg most of all. The broken one, he remembers.

 Finally MacCready finds the hand on his shoulder – warms, sturdy, familiar. He looks up.

Preston meets his gaze. Lips tight with fear and eyes wide with panic gradually relaxing into anxious hope. “Hey. You with me?” he says.

“Where’s your hat?” MacCready replies with a giggle. It’s funny, he thinks. He’s so stuck on that bare head. Short cropped hair he’s never seen. A jagged scar mars the right side of Preston face. For a wild moment MacCready wants to ask where he got it. He giggles again.

Preston isn’t laughing. Panic creeps back into his eyes and the guilt MacCready feels at that is as overwhelming as it is inexplicable.

“It hurts, like fuc- bad. But yeah, I’m here.”

Preston’s lips twitch with a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Don’t hold back on my account.”

“I’m not,” MacCready hisses as another jolt of pain shoots through his leg. He’s still sweating, still hot despite the second shot of med-x. He tries to think about what that means.

The half-smile drops from Preston’s face. “Look, help is on the way. You’re going to be okay.”

To MacCready’s ears, Preston sounds like he’s trying to convince himself more than anyone. A half-smile of his own starts to tug at his lips. “Keep talking like that I’m gonna start thinking you really care about what happens to me.”

“I do.” Then: “I’m sorry.”

The vehement honesty of the first two words startles MacCready so badly he almost doesn’t hear the next two. Almost.

“Sorry? What the hell for?!” The words burst forth before MacCready can even think to censor himself.

Preston lets go of MacCready’s shoulder and sits back on his heels. MacCready hadn’t even realized he was still holding him; for a fraction of second he finds himself wishing he still was.

“The terminal…I knew there were more of them. I knew they would come back. I should have told you, but I was…I didn’t expect…this is my fault.”

“Stop. God, stop it.” MacCready laughs, a proper cackle that makes his vision go black and his ribs scream. It’s funny. Preston Garvey, telling him he cares. Telling him he’s sorry.  “Stop it,” he repeats, still snickering, still seeing stars. “I can’t deal with this right now. I’m gonna puke.”

MacCready throws out one shaky hand to braces himself and leans to over. Preston dives forward, holds him steady while he retches up for frothy bile and undigested bits of brahmin jerky.

“I’m sorry,” Preston says again, so softly MacCready almost misses it as he spits out the taste of acid.

“Stop saying that.”

Preston stops.

They don’t talk much after that. MacCready dozes on and off, still slumped against the old tree. It’s not a comfortable position, but lying down would be worse. Despite the churning in his stomach he sips the water Preston rations out, nibbles the bits of jerky he’s given. He vomits twice more over the next three hours.

Med-x keeps the pain in check but not the chills. Around the blood stained bandages MacCready’s leg is swollen, hot to the touch. MacCready’s no doctor, but he has a good idea what that means.

Preston sees the signs as well; the anxiety shows in the set of his lips, the furrow of his brow. But he keeps his back straight and shoulders square. As the sun dips towards the horizon he takes off his coat, drapes it over MacCready, and tells him with only the slightest tremble in his voice that help will be there soon. Everything will be okay. They’re going to be fine.

Heavy with exhaustion MacCready leans back, closes his eyes, and almost believes him.

\-- End Part One--


	2. Chapter 2

Preston hails the cavalry well past midnight: a man and a woman barely visible in the moonlight as they trot across the field to the copse of trees where Preston has set up camp. They make introductions as they lay out a battered nylon stretcher. While Preston doesn’t recognize the names – Sujay and Devon, Minutemen stationed at the Sunshine Tiding Co-Op – they certainly know his. The respect in their voices and admiration in their eyes is startling as it is discomfiting; it makes Preston want to curl in on himself, the way all undeserved praise does. But the task at hand demands a steady head and full attention. Just as he’s done many times since Quincy he bundles up that guilt and fear, shoves it down as far as it will go, and takes control.

MacCready passed out hours ago. Sweat beads on his pale face while his chest rises and falls with labored breaths. Sujay and Devon move him to the stretcher while Preston breaks down the camp. He crams a knapsack with the dwindling supply of food and water, the makeshift tent, MacCready’s coat and hat. He leaves the bloody tattered blanket he used to drag MacCready from the road to the illusion of cover in the trees.

The camp fire has burned down to glowing embers; Preston kicks some dirt over the remains. The he shrugs on his own coat, slings MacCready’s across his over his arm, takes his musket in one hand and the knapsack in the other. There’s not much else to take. Most of the salvage from the raider camp was abandoned after the battle, along with Preston’s lost hat.

Devon waves off Preston’s offer to help carry MacCready. He stands aside as she takes one side of the stretcher and Sujay takes the other. They lift it with ease and they’re off.

“We’ve got a doctor waiting with a cart back on the road,” Sujay tells Preston as they hurry across the moonlit field. “Well, animal doctor, but Farai is one of the best. She’ll take care of your friend, don’t you worry.”

“We brought stimpacks and clean water. Should tide him over until we get to the co-op. Be there by dawn, with luck.” Devon adds, then with something tipping towards excitement: “I’m impressed you’ve kept him going this long. I didn’t get the whole report but it sounded like some nasty business. But then you’re the Preston Garvey, one of the best of us. Guess it’s not a big surprise.”

That guilt and shame creeps hot across Preston’s cheeks. He tucks his chin into his scarf. “Thank you, but we really need to keep moving.”

True to Sujay’s word Preston soon spies the silhouette of a cart and brahmin against the horizon. As they approach another shadow jumps from the back of the cart – Farai, he assumes. She doesn’t introduce herself, or even acknowledge Preston, while MacCready is settled in the bed. Only after Sujay goes to coax the brahmin into movement does she seem to notice he’s there at all.

“Well? Get in,” she snaps, fussing with her headlamp and bag.

“I…oh!” Preston stutters as he realizes she’s speaking to him. He stands a little straighter, shifts the musket in his hands. “It’s fine, ma’am. I can walk.”

“No, you can’t, but I won’t stop you from trying. We’ve wasted enough time out here. Sujay! Get that animal moving!”

Not once during their brief exchange does Farai take her attention away from MacCready. Preston watches as she peels away the blood crusted bandage wrapped around his leg. The smell that escapes is pungent, nauseating. Preston is no field doc but he knows the signs of infection. He cranes his neck to get a proper look at the wound under Farai’s lamp, but before he can the cart lurches forward. One of the brahmin heads grunts plaintively as the creature begins her steady forward trudge.

They’re off.

For the first two hours Preston keeps steady pace, despite the stinging ache in his shoulders and the heaviness of his eyelids. He’s used to long marches on little sleep. Head held high, back straight, put one foot in front of the other. Then do it again, and again, and again. Like the brahmin with her own heavy burden Preston trudges forth. He thinks about the thunderous clatter of gunfire, the stifling heat of car fires, the copper smell of blood so thick in the air he tastes it.

Hands on his shoulders startle Preston back to reality. He’s on the ground, he realizes, on his knees. He’s dropped his musket. Sujay holds him up, Farai crouched behind him.

“What did I tell you,” Farai says with tired voice of a woman used to being proven right. “Sujay help me get him in the cart.”

Preston starts to protest as Sujay pulls him to his feet, but the other Minuteman cuts him off.

“She’s right, and you’ve done enough.”

The cart is stopped, Devon minding it, a little further up. Preston climbs in himself. He glances at MacCready as he huddles down in the far right corner. The other man is more shadow than substance in the dark, but Preston can see the rise and fall of his chest. Steadier, he thinks, then it had been.

The cart creaks and groans as Farai jumps back in. Preston looks up. She meets his gaze with a steady, inscrutable look.

“Your friend’s not out of the woods yet,” she tells him.

Preston nods. He thinks about telling her MacCready is far from a friend, but such a declaration seems somehow inappropriate. Instead he settles in to watch the late night wasteland roll past, hypnotizing and deceptively silent.

\--

Preston awakens to hand on his shoulder and the hazy purple-blue of dawn. He squints against the unexpected light as Devon’s face comes into focus. All at once the memory of the last few hours rushes back; he starts to scramble out of the old cart, half noticing it’s no longer hitched to its one brahmin team.

He’s barely on his feet when his vision goes dark and he starts to sway. Devon catches him with steady hands.

“Careful, sir!”

“MacCready! Is he…”

“He’s being taken care of. It looks bad, but Farai is hopeful so I am too.”

Devon’s words knock about with Preston’s memories of the last few nights, not quite fitting, not quite making sense. He stays quiet until the grey fog edging his vision retreats and he can stand again on his own.

“How can I help?” Preston asks the question, easy as breathing.

“You can rest. It’s been a long night. We’ve got a few beds down in the barn we rent out to travelers; you can bunk down there. No charge, of course.”

“I’m fine. I slept damn near the whole way here.”

“Ah, little extra sleep never never hurt anyone.”

Devon starts to reach out as if to take his shoulder, hesitates, then let her arm drop to her side. She glances over her shoulder at a large patchy building of corrugated steel sheets and splintered wood - the barn, Preston suspects. When she looks back she tries to smile. The early morning casts her face in a light purple hue. The night before he’d taken her for a woman, but with clearer light and a clearer head he’d give her that title just barely. Under the dust and the dirt she has soft full cheeks and a bright eager eyes. She can’t be more than seventeen. No older than he had been when he signed on with the Minutemen. No less hopeful and no less awestruck by those who’d come before.

Preston bites the inside of his cheek. He gnaws the flesh until it’s raw and stinging. Then he says, “I’d like to see MacCready first.”

“Farai won’t let you. She doesn’t like people underfoot while she’s working.”

"Something I can do to help around the settlement then."

"I don't think so. It's still very early. Most people are still asleep..." She trails off, shifts her weight from foot to foot. "Why don't you put your stuff down in the barn, maybe have something to eat. There's bound to be something left over in the mess."

Preston sighs. He's suddenly aware of a twitch in his eye and of the way his legs feel heavy and stiff. He gathers his pack and musket from the cart. He hesitates over MacCready's coat. The ratty old thing was never clean, but the now the hem has a new reddish brown stain. Preston brushes a finger over the stain and his finger tip comes away glistening. Blood, MacCready's most likely, and strangely still not dry. He tucks it under his arm.

The barn is cramped and poorly lit by the buzzing cage lights mounted along the ceiling. There are six stalls, three on either long wall. A brahmin each, grunt and scuffling their feet, fills two of them. Three are stacked with crates, oil drums, and tools. Devon leads Preston to left stall in the very back. True to her word, tucked away there are three raggedy old mattresses.  A stack of threadbare blankets sits on top of a nearby crate. Beside the crate sits a pile of pillows. Devon takes one of the pillows and two blankets from the top of the stack and hands them Preston. He accepts them with a murmur of thanks.

"There's a water pump around the back if you need to wash your face," she says. "You can leave your boots and whatnot by the bed. They'll be safe. We're good honest people here. I'll see what I can scrounge up from the kitchen."

"I'm alright," Preston says at the same time his stomach lets out a thunderous gurgle. He blushes, cheeks hot.

Devon laughs, a high pitched childish giggle. "There should be some soup left over from dinner. I'll go get you a bowl while you settle in.” A pause then she ventures, “I’ll peek in on your friend too. I’m sure he’ll be fine. You probably saved his life, you know.”

‘Saved his life.’ Those words echo loudly in Preston’s thoughts, amplified in the silence left by Devon’s departure. He’s been told the same before - by settlers, by the General. He can’t believe them; he wonders if they understand. He didn’t save MacCready anymore than he saved the people in Quincy. How can he take credit for shivering and praying in the dark when his choices are what are what killed them in the first place.

Preston drops the pillow and blankets on one of the mattresses. He lays down his pack and his weapon in a corner. He hesitates a moment with MacCready’s coat in hand before folding it up and setting it away as well. The barn smells of mildew, dirt, and animal life. He breathes deep to anchor himself to the now against rising memories of death and rot. Then he starts to make the bed.

Devon returns with a lukewarm bowl of radstag stew. Preston watches chunks of meat and tato bob in in the greasy brown broth while she updates him on MacCready’s condition. Stable, hopeful, he’ll make through the night. She asks if he needs anything else. He says no, thank you. She leaves him with an awkward salute while he awkwardly stares at the dented tin spoon rocking in the slop-filled ceramic bowl.

The stew tastes like salted salt, unappetizing but filling. Preston finds himself scraping the bare bottom of the bowl before he knows it. He hasn’t, he realizes, eaten properly in nearly two days. Strange how quickly the dizziness and nausea that comes from hunger starts to feel normal until it’s gone. He sets the bowl on the floor before stretching out fully clothed on the mattress. Overhead the lights buzz and flicker; the hum of electricity just audible over the snorting stomping brahmin. Devon didn’t turn the lights off when she left. Preston wonders if he should get up, look for a switch, but he doesn’t move. He tries to focus on the way his boots, a little too small, pinch his toes. He tries to focus on the shadows dancing on the ceiling and the shapes they make. He tries to focus on breathing and the warm wet scent of old piss and shit-soaked grass.

It helps, if only slightly.

Guilt and bad memories are a lot like mole rats. They swarm, crawling over each other until you can’t tell one from another. Put one down and another just as ugly rises up in its place. They nip at your heels, annoyances that gnaw at your ankles until you collapse. They’ll devour you if you let them.

Preston keens low, soft. He presses the heels of hands to his eyes until he sees stars. He counts the color bursts behind his eyelids while gunfire rattles in his ears. He focuses on the stars, not the memory of burning gasoline so overwhelming he can smell it. He sees red and tries to think of anything but blood pooled on abandoned highways, splashed on the wall of crumbling brownstones, seeping through dirty bandages that smell too sweet.

‘You’re friend.’ ‘Stable.’ ‘You saved his life.’ These words knock about in Preston’s mind.

‘We all make choices,’ the General told him once. ‘All we can do is live with them.’

He rolls onto his side. He thinks about the terminal and the patrol he knew was out. He thinks about Quincy and dead friends and exploding old world cars.

“I don’t even like him,” he mumbles into the night.

‘I should have said something,’ he thinks. ‘What if I’d said something.’

Choices. Everyone makes them. Preston rolls onto his side. He thinks he should have made better ones.

\--

Preston sleeps until midday, a deep dreamless sleep the type of which he hasn’t had in nearly a year. He wakes up sore, but refreshed. Folded on one of the empty mattresses is a new shirt only lightly stained. Besides it is a pitcher of water. He dresses slowly, splashes a bit of water from the pitcher onto his face, and heads out into the afternoon sun.

A clear day, the sun beams bright on the co-op. Preston shields his eyes with his hand as he looks about. The settlement has come a long way in the months since he and the General first cleared out the infestation of feral ghouls and put up the beacon tower. Ramshackle walls and turret towers mark the perimeter. Ghoul corpses are gone, old buildings refurbished or torn down, replaced with children and simple shacks. Tatos, corn, and razorgrain have taken root in scattered garden patches, and the two barn brahmin mill about a pen beside the large open garage at the center of the settlement. Preston feels a swell of pride at the sight.

A cough and small hand tugging at his coat draws his attention. When he looks down to find a girl no more than eight years old pointing towards a building at the far end of the co-op.

“Your friend’s in the doctor’s house. She said you’d wanna know.”

“Thank you,” he says but the girl is already running to her gaggle of giggling friends.

Set in the window of Farai’s home/clinic is a dingy wood sign that says ‘Open,’ but Preston knocks anyway before stepping inside.

The front hall is empty, save for a patched up couch and wooden side table holding a chipped vase of dying hubflowers. On the left an open archway leads into a small sitting room. At the end of the all three closed doors mark what Preston assumes to be bedrooms and closets. He hollers a hello to no response.

Preston shifts his weight from one foot to the other then back again as he considers his options. He should wait for Farai, he thinks. An open door was not an invitation to trespass. He owes the woman her privacy at least. Nor does he know if MacCready is even awake, or well enough for visitors.

A myriad of excuses, all of them reasonable, fair, and easy to be swept away on. But the murmur of conversation drifting from the end of the hall draws Preston back to now. He recognizes one of the voices, pinched and whiny, immediately. Relief washes over him with such force his knees go weak. He braces himself against the wall, takes a steadying breath before moving down the hall and rapping on the door to the room the voice came from.

“Come in.” A woman’s voice, gruff but not unkind. It takes Preston a moment to place it; she’d spoken so little the other night.

Farai doesn’t look up when Preston enters the bedroom. MacCready doesn’t either, too focused on warding off the woman poking and prodding at him. Preston hovers in the doorway and watches. The other man looks much better than he did the last time he’d seen him. He’s still pale and Preston doesn’t miss the way he shakes with every movement. But his eyes are bright, if tired, and his voice is loud, if angry. He looks alive, if not well. Recovering, if not recovered. The same sense of relief that overtook Preston in the hallway hits him again.

Preston coughs, but MacCready has already noticed him. He stares openly, forgetting his battle with Farai. For the briefest of moments his wide-eyed expression is raw and honest.

“You’re still here,” MacCready says.

The statement is tinged with shock bordering on awe; it makes Preston’s chest clench. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other. “Where else would I be?” he asks. An awkward answer to an awkward statement. He tries again: “Feeling better?”

“He’ll live,” Farai interrupts. She steps back from the bed. Preston can see now that she has some sort of mechanical instrument in her hand. It disappears into the same battered carpet bag she'd had in the cart. She turns back to MacCready. “Rest, stay off your feet. You’ll walk out of here in a week. You don’t even need to worry about my fee. Consider it a favor for a friend of the Minutemen.”

MacCready flushes and looks away at this. He mutters something Preston can’t quite hear.

“Think nothing of it,” Farai says as she gathers her bag. She pauses on her way out of the room to give Preston an appraising look. “You seem much better yourself today. Should I look you over as well?”

Preston shakes his head. “No, thank you. You’ve been very generous.”

“We all have our jobs to do.” Her gaze lingers over his face for a moment. Then she nods, as though she’s seen something she approves of, and she brushes past him and out of the room. The doors clicks shut behind her.

An uncomfortable silence settles over the room. There’s a stool by MacCready’s bed. Preston perches on the edge. He wrings his hands in his lap, wanting to bolt but obligation keeps him steady. Another a moment crawls by before they both speak:

“Guess I owe you big time now.”

“I’m so sorry.”

They stop, start again, their words tripping into each other like frantic children. Finally MacCready pulls ahead, loud and furious.

“God would you stop already?! I don’t get what you think you’re even apologizing for.”

“I led you into that! I knew there was a patrol out that’d be coming back. I should have told you. I shouldn’t--” Laughter startles Preston out of his rant. Heat creeps into his cheeks and annoyance quickly overtakes self-pity. “What’s so damn funny?” he snaps.

“I don’t get it!” MacCready chokes out between giggles. “That’s what you’re wound up about? You’d think you blew that damn car up yourself.” He shakes his head and leans back into the pillows. “I don’t...look, whatever. It doesn’t matter.”

It does matter, but Preston doesn’t press the issue. They lapse into the silence again. He stares down at his hands, watches with detached interest as he twines his fingers together and squeezes until they ache. Squeeze, ache, release. He repeats this several times until MacCready reaches out and grabs his hand. Preston jerks but doesn’t pull away.

“Look, you saved my life anyway, right? That’s a heck of a debt. I’ll make it up to you, somehow.”

“You don’t owe me anything.”

“You’d do it for anybody? Preston Garvey, always out wasting his time saving the world. Yeah, I know.”

The words are mocking, but lack the bite Preston has grown used to from the other. He looks up and MacCready releases his hand to poke his forehead.

“Hey!”

“At least let me get you another one of those funny looking hats. You look weird without it.”

A small smile tugs at Preston lips for the first time in days. Devon had called them friends. Farai, too. It doesn’t feel like the right word, he’d never considered it, but.

But.

Impulse grabs him and he pokes MacCready back, right between the eyes. When he yelps in surprise Preston surprises himself with his own laughter.

“Okay,” Preston says. “I think...I think can let you do that.”

There’s more to say, that needs to shared and explained. But for now, Preston thinks, it’s a start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What I learned from this fic is don't start posting things until you're done writing them. Happy New Year.

**Author's Note:**

> Part Two features Preston's POV and will finish this up. Shout out to raisedbyhyenas for pushing to get this terribly unshippy ship fic finished. I'm doing my best. ;_;


End file.
